In
the summer of 2012, BCRC arranged for an equipment loan to WYPR
producer Matt Purdy to create audio about youth in Baltimore living
with HIV. You can read about the project and hear some of the audio
on the Maryland Morning site.

Volunteer
Scott Goldberg worked with “The
Intersection” (a Baltimore group teaching community organizing
to young people) to prepare an audio exhibit for an April, 2012,
“community conversation” about the physical state of the city's
schools. With equipment loaned via BCRC, students made an 8-minute
program that you can hear at http://soundcloud.com/the-intersection

Welcome

The
Baltimore Community Radio Coalition (BCRC) is a collaborative project
of faculty at Goucher College, Loyola College, the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health and members of the Baltimore
community. We are also a 501c3 non-profit.

Children,
youth and young adults in many Baltimore neighborhoods face daunting
challenges to their emotional well-being, education and
safety. Public health interventions target these challenges on
many levels: they seek to reduce the challenges themselves, and
increase the capacity of individuals and communities to overcome
them. However, communities need means of communication to act
cohesively. Modern media -- newspapers, television, radio, even
the Internet -- are increasingly targeted at a regional or national
level. Information that originates and is received locally is
needed to disseminate accurate information, provide a sense of
ownership and build support for common causes. In that sense,
community radio is an infrastructure intervention – it seeks to
provide a means by which communities can organize formally and
informally to improve living conditions.

At
the same time, children and youth need opportunities for
intellectually engaging activities that build on their strengths,
teach them new skills and provide them with the potential to to
play active roles in their communities. The skills involved in
community radio -- developing story lines and focused arguments,
learning interviewing and speaking skills -- are associated with
academic success and with developing a positive image of youth
in the community. Thus, community radio complements other
interventions aimed at youth literacy, violence prevention,
school-retention, appropriate use of health care resources, and
career development.

We
have been working with youth media projects since 2000, initially
with funding from the Open Society Institute. Some of the audio
programs produced by students in our "Uniquely Spoken"
project have been posted on the public radio web site, PRX (the
Public Radio Exchange) and have been used by public radio
stations from across the country. Another Uniquely Spoken
collaboration was with the “Theatre for a New Generation: Encounter
Program” sponsored by Baltimore's Center Stage. Uniquely Spoken
recorded the Encounter Program's Poetic Convergence: Baltimore
Youth Poetry Festival, March 4, 2002.

In
2010 BCRC helped sponsor the MEGAPOLIS “do it yourself audio”
festival in Baltimore (other sponsors included the Goethe Institute,
the Maryland State Arts Council, WYPR, and The Transom).

Also
in 2010, we began partnering with the drama program at Roland Park
Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore to help students write and
produce their own radio plays. The partnership is now in its third
year.

In
addition to collaboration with The Intersection (see the link at the
top of the page), in 2012 we also collaborated with WYPR to loan
equipment for a radio project with Baltimore youth living with HIV
(see the link at the top of the page).

BCRC
member Dr. Sylvia Park, as part of her work at Baltimore
Healthcare Access, developed a radio show on WLOY, Loyola
College's internet student radio station. “Both
Feet In” tells stories about Baltimore's homeless population.
Click here
to listen to her first program. One of the show's episodes won a
“best podcast” at the 2011 National Student Media Convention.
Both Feet In won another best podcast award at the 2012 College
Broadcasters, Inc. meeting. BCRC's youth literacy program, What
Happens Next?, also won a2011
Associated Collegiate Press Best of Show Award atthe
2011 National Student Media Convention. Read about the awards and the
programs on the WLOY
website.